At 16:02 UTC, Friday, May 25, 2012, the SpaceX Dragon officially became the first privately-owned commercial spacecraft to be captured by and berthed at the International Space Station. It is (if I’ve done the math correctly) the 114th spacecraft to dock with ISS, including the missions sent up to build the station. It is the first privately-owned commercial spacecraft in history to do so.

You can read more about this in my last post, which also has a few pictures from the approach and capture.

I think there are an awful lot of people who are an awful lot happier than we are right now. And to them, I say, well done. You have earned the right to flip out and walk on clouds for the next week or so. Just don’t forget to get your nose back to the grind-stone and make this a repeat! I want to see these things painted taxi-cab yellow before I’m too old and frail to enjoy the trip!

I’m hoping that this will stir up a whole bunch of private companies’ interest in space exploration. Imagine several big corporations competing against each other to provide affordable rocket launches! I think that would get the development of space travel technology rolling again.

David – most do. The Shuttle, Soyuz, Progress, and the ATV all have docking ports. Docking ports contain guide cones, capture latches, shock absorbers, and everything else needed for one spaceship to fly up and dock to another. The Dragon capsule (and the Japanese HTV) have Berthing ports, which essentially only have the hard capture latches. Those require the station arm to grab the vehicle and hold it in place while the latches are engaged. The advantage of the berthing ports is the ability to pass much larger pieces of equipment through. Shuttle and Soyuz docking ports are barely large enough for a single person to squeeze through, and there are a lot of pieces of equipment in the station that won’t fit through a docking port.

“You mean the launch facilities that SpaceX built on a bare patch of ground? The overwhelming bulk of the costs for the development of the Falcon9/Dragon have been borne by SpaceX.”

What the…??? SpaceX bought the rights to an old Canaveral pad, and use Canaveral range support. Just like their previous use of Kwaj. You’re probably thinking of their PROPOSED private site in, likely, South Texas or possibly Puerto Rico. Hasn’t broken ground, hasn’t even been selected yet.

Also, SpaceX developed Dragon knowing they had a market lined up. So while the actual dollars themselves originated with private lenders, those lenders would have charged a higher rate (or, perhaps wouldn’t have lent at all) without knowing the risk had largely been eased by a nice, juicy government contract. Bigelow wasn’t in the picture yet.

You’re also ignoring the reentry shape, dating back to DoD research, and the reentry ablative, also derivative. Oh, and the GPS receivers, refined since ’60s demonstrator flights. And the numerous propellant and tank technologies set by researchers on military contracts, the alloys formulated by the Soviets, the solar cells enabled by numerous experimental flights, the multiple metallurgies and abort technique flown by NASA first, and of course, the use of simpler berthing by arm, allowed by a Canadian-funded arm and demonstrated by JAXA first…I could go on.